A bit of personal research has shown that new running shoes can increase speeds by nearly 5%. If they do that for an ordinary runner, what must shoe technology be doing for the elite?
I have a weird habit with new clothes and shoes where I tend not to wear them if there is any danger of getting dirty. This has led me to an interesting observation about the effect of new running shoes on how fast you can run.
After getting a new pair of Asics running shoes for Christmas, I had a great January of dry conditions for running. But February has turned more unpredictable so I have sometimes been wearing my old shoes as I didn’t want to get the new ones dirty!!
This week I noticed that some of my times were different. After consistently running at the same pace for weeks, things were getting more unpredictable. So, after going back over each day I discovered the connection – the slower times were the ones when I used the old shoes.
The graph below shows my average speed with the old shoes (blue) and new shoes (pink). The average speed was 12.7km/h in the old shoes and 13.3km/h in the new ones – that’s a 4.7% increase.
Average speeds with old and new shoes
How can I be sure this was down to the shoes?
I only noticed this trend after I had done the running, so this is not an experiment with standardised conditions. However given the conditions listed below, I think it’s fair to attribute the majority of the change to the shoes. For example:
- There were no significant differences in the weather across the days. The only reason I wore the old shoes was to avoid the puddles and mud from rain the night before. It was not raining when I ran.
- Apart from puddles the underfoot conditions were the same (and the majority of running was on the road anyway).
- I was running at the same time of day each time.
- We’re in Lockdown so I only get to run the same routes and distance each time.
- I only thought of this after I finished running so there was no unconscious bias of running faster or slower on certain occasions to make a point.
Implications of shoe technology
I am an ordinary runner (10km in somewhere around 46 minutes) so a 5% increase in speed is interesting, but is likely to disappear over-time as the shoes wear down. But it does show how much technology can influence a sport that seems as low-tech as running.
We’ve seen this recently with a spate of new world records thanks in part to Nike’s controversial new track spikes. While World Athletics are ‘pretty calm about this’ there is always a danger that one brand will come to dominate so much that others chose to focus on a different discipline where they can get the edge.
There is a fine line between innovation and domination. One can have positive impact on the sport and the other can eventually stifle advancement. Whilst being calm, World Athletics would be wise to pay very careful attention to what is going on in the whole shoe ecosystem.
Sport.dat 